CDO journos: Ampatuan Massacre ‘won’t be forgotten’

Cathy Nuñez, mother of UNTV reporter Victor Nuñez, led journalists in lighting candles at the Press Freedom Monument In Cagayan de Oro City on November 23, 2024, the 15th anniversary of the Ampatuan Massacre. Victor was one of the 32 media workers killed in the massacre, which claimed a total of 58 lives. MindaNews photo by FROILAN GALLARDO

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (MindaNews / 24 November) — Cathy Nuñez and Ma. Reynafe Momay-Castillo have thought the world has forgotten the Ampatuan Massacre, where 58 people, including 32 media workers, were brutally killed 15 years ago.

Instead, hundreds of journalists and activists joined rallies and lit candles across the cities of Manila and Cagayan de Oro on Saturday, November 23, to mark the 15^th anniversary of the Ampatuan Massacre, the worst election-related violence in the Philippines and the largest single deadliest attack against media workers in the world.

“I thought you and the world have forgotten us,” Nuñez told reporters who gathered at the Press Freedom Monument here.

Nuñez is the mother of UNTV reporter Victor Nuñez, one of the 32 media workers killed in the massacre in Barangay Salman, Ampatuan town in the then undivided Maguindanao province on November 23, 2009.

Castillo said that the families of the media workers killed in the Ampatuan Massacre have been drawing strength from the unity among journalists in their struggle to seek justice.

“The fight continues and will continue until we get the justice the victims deserve,” Castillo, who is now based in the US, said in a text message to MindaNews.

Castillo is the daughter of Reynaldo “Bebot” Momay, a photojournalist whose body was not found.

Although his body was not found, Momay is considered as the 32^rd journalist killed and the 58^th victim of the 2009 massacre.

“We maintained that the 58 victims, including the 32 journalists killed in the massacre, received only partial justice. (We) vow to support the families of the victims and urge the government to deliver full justice to the victims,” Sheila Butlig, of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines – Cagayan de Oro chapter, said.

Lawyer Beverly Musni, of the Union of People’s Lawyers in Mindanao, also assailed the slow justice system and urged the government to dismantle warlords in the country.

“You the media are all given the responsibility to tell the truth and most of the time, the truth is associated with martyrdom,”  Monsignor Perseus Cabunoc, parish priest of Barangay Lapasan here, said.

Cabunoc led the candle lighting after the Mass at the Press Freedom Monument in Cagayan de Oro Saturday. (Froilan Gallardo / MindaNews)